PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY | EXAMPLES | WORK EXPERIENCE | CREATIVE

PMO TRANFORMATION EXAMPLE | BUILDING A PMO

CREATING A PMO FRAMEWORK FROM THE GROUND UP

Scenario

• Situation
• At Rubicon Project, the Engineering and Technology group was expanding
• Teams were growing and being created to manage new systems and product development
• Some teams were self/Engineering-managed
• Some teams had embedded Project Managers, Project Managers were aligned with system or scrum teams
• Some teams relied more on their Technical Product Manager than their Project Manager
• Operations recognized we were at a point where standardization was needed across the board for intake, prioritization, resource allocation, dependency coordination, budget oversight, status and reporting, and driving delivery forward
• We were an independent collection of Project Managers until the recent hiring of a Director to unify us
• I was a Senior Project Manager at the time and one of two leaders supporting and advising the Director in standing up a PMO
• Task
• Assist and advise the Director on creating the protocols and frameworks needed to standardize project management, status reporting, and delivery
• Identify where processes were needed; define the challenge to be solved
• Outline what the framework should be to resolve the challenge, liaise with other groups as needed for evangelizing, coordination, and buy-in
• Assist the Project Managers and their teams with understanding and adopting the new protocols
• Support the Director during rollout to monitor effectiveness and adapt as needed
• Actions
• Met with team leads across the Technology org to identify what was working and not working, where they felt operational heartburn
• Intake and prioritization process
• Two-directional communication from leadership
• Cross-team coordination on urgently needed work
• Clear business/product requirements and timing expectations for Engineering to develop against
• Met with org leadership to identify where they felt the current processes were insufficient or not providing a clear picture
• Standardized reporting with clear and transparent status and risk assessment/mitigation plans
• Prioritization of work across teams
• Ensuring releases were on track and delivering to expectation
• Met with my Director and partner to review and brainstorm on where standardized practices were needed
• Work intake and ingestion; emergent priority shifts
• Communication and coordination frameworks; internal and cross-team, stakeholders, executive leadership
• Clear RACI and role definitions to avoid duty collisions
• Reporting tools, formats, cadence
• Project plans, documentation standards, dashboards
• Release Management coordination
• Drafted new protocols for review and approval from the director and leadership
• Met with Project Management peers and team leaders to review the new standards and how to implement them over the coming weeks
• Observed the output from Project Managers and teams and reviewed with the Director where support/oversight was needed to faciliate proper adoption or adapt things as needed
• Result
• Successful adoption of project frameworks and revised definition of Project Manager role
• Reporting standardized in cadence, format, voice, and audience
• Project intake more structured and dependable across teams
• Cross-team coordination and dependency management dramatically improved
• Improved Release Management coordination and documentation
• Established a scalable framework used until at least the merger with Telaria to form Magnite (uncertain how things were organized after the merger)
• Executive confidence and trust increased dramatically with improved transparency and reliable communication protocols
• Role of Project Management better utilized and recognized for its discipline, seen for more than scrum management or meeting scheduling

Business Impact

• Vastly improved visibility on project status, risks, and delivery timing
• Mitigation of priority collisions and cross-team dependency drops
• Improved confidence in project deliveries
• Clear RACI/role assignment clarified SMEs and responsible project contacts

Approach

• Understand what the problems are that need to be solved, remain flexible in addressing them
• Listen to people and their concerns, where they feel pain points
• Ask them what they would like to see changed and in what way
• Understand from leadership what the gaps are that need to be addressed
• Collaborate with my Director to discuss processes and opportuntuies to simplify
• Treat everyone as a knowledgeable professional with a desire to succeed, no one is deliberately an obstacle

Challenges

• There were too many teams to properly assign Project Managers, careful deliberation on which teams would self-manage and how
• Some teams had different philosophies on how to manage work and what the Project Management role should be
• Several rounds of discussion and ultimately leadership helped with setting expectations on RACI and roles
• Priority changes and urgent injections from leadership outside of protocol occasionally still occurred

Key Learnings

• People dislike change
• Big changes can go smoothly with the right planning and pacing
• Changes don't have to be difficult or complex to be meaningful